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Run Into The Fire
by Sean Padraig
Ratings:
667 pages10 hours
Summary
Hugly is simple. A nice guy. Foreign, uneducated and shy, he gets along with children, rabbits and rats much better than with the sophisticated who tinker with society through their agents. The enemies may be educated, wealthy and powerful, and even seductive and vicious, but Hugly’s got more than a few tricks up his sleeve. He’s got friends in high and low places that never lose sight of him. His sometimes deluded and skeptical friends may think he’s there to help them, but they’ve got it all wrong. All wrong. When faced with evil in its many forms, it’s often best to just run away. But Hugly knows too, that it’s often best to stand firm, and at other times it’s best to run as fast as you can, right into the fire. Especially if saving others. When whole armies and all civilization needs saving, God chooses to send his best; six inch tall men who slay dragons, giants and prosperity preachers.
Publisher: PublishdriveReleased: Nov 3, 2019ISBN: 9781733465809Format: book
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Run Into The Fire - Sean Padraig
CHAPTER 1
What we know about mankind’s history is really quite vague. All that is chronicled of our origins and past aren’t even highlights, but just momentary glimpses that don’t really paint much of a picture. Yet, just because we don’t have a record of everything dating back to creation, does not mean that times long gone were uneventful or meaningless. Indeed, simple reflection should bring one to say that long ago, the lives of men were every bit as involved, shall we say, as they are today.
Isn’t it funny, and at the same time tragic, that every generation thinks themselves to be so much more enlightened than the last? But we fail, even in those things we do know. For example, it’s unambiguous in the record that giants existed long ago. But a giant is only a giant to those who are not giants. And recognizing someone as a giant, then depends on what is considered normal. But it’s unknown what normal was in ancient days, and we only assume it was relative to men today. What if a man at five feet and nine inches was considered a titan
?
Regardless of the age a man lives in, his full significance is only known to God. It could be that he is a titan. It could be that he’s smart, or that he’s charismatic, or that he can play the xylophone. And it could also be that he is simple. The significance of a man’s life, the real meaning of his existence, lies with God’s purposes for him—not men’s. And the most significant, often pass right before our eyes unnoticed.
Take this little guy for example: The brown dibeetle with its six thin legs, all barbed for sure footing, was escaping up Hugly’s arm, when he reached and pulled it, as it scratched and grasped. He pushed it shell-first into the cinched top of the bag with the others.
The white worm, that he had paused to wait for, had just breached the surface of the soft dirt beneath him. He took hold of it, pulled it free, and in one motion, swung it in an arc, striking it on a bulky root. The hard, black head with its stem and much of the liquid came out on the impact. He drew it through his clenched fist and flung away the gooey dirt mix. Wiping his hand on the root, he then punched the remainder into his bag for the dibeetles to feast on.
The draw string was pulled, sealing the churning mass within. The bag hung from his neck in front and was secured around the waist with his coiled cloak pinned firmly upon his back.
Looking into the lighted canopy of tall brown grass above him, Hugly sighed and quoted someone, Don’t waste your portion.
He took a deep breath and tapped his hands in rapid fashion together, then upon the bag, and then his brow. Quickly waving his hand up, next, he said, "Mosimpofah!" to the sky, before setting off through the thick.
He knew the way, as he nearly always seemed to. He never wondered at this and certainly would not start today. Someone was due home soon, and Hugly was excited at the reunion.
Being here on this unfamiliar off-path, he would point himself in a right direction and be where he intended, in time. He picked up the pace, and now he was running quickly over smooth and rough paths made by creatures other than men. He would reach the broad Dead Tree some time shortly after he caught his second wind.
Dibeetles are not overly rare. They are highly prized for stews. A hearty and clean food, they never eat anything dead that has gone bad. Hugly had earned some wages in the past, finding and selling the shiny black bugs. But now he was collecting things for Isha Maera Cousins, who had dispatched him on various missions over the last several days. She had a need for preparations.
He liked this, because he was alone in the wilderness much of the time, where he was comfortable and knew his business. In the wild, Hugly was free to do and think as he pleased. No one expected of him things he could not readily do, and now he was doing what he loved most of all. His feet were swift and light and agile as he could pick them up and put them down very quickly.
The terrain involved the grass and underbrush. It flew toward him as Hugly reached out with hands and feet, pulling it and throwing it all behind. Every beast that could, scattered as he neared them. His swishing legs and buffeting hands met the floor and every obstacle with a great energy and precision.
This challenging of himself always involved an odd rhythm that he relished. The slap of hand, the pound of foot, the dodge, the duck and weave… all incorporated rapidly upon the path, as though he had come this way a thousand times. But he had not. He chose the odd route as often as possible.
As the grasses and saplings were now thinning around him, Hugly looked in the distance where he saw two crows high up in a broken and leafless dead tree, which sat alone in the midst of a small meadow. Normally crows avoid people and fly away when they are approached, yet Hugly had been so often busily harvesting and rummaging near to these that they grew accustomed to him and now only look at him curiously. Hugly was also very conscious of them, often considerately digging up grubs (their favorite) and leaving them on the surface.
One of the two crows looked off at the sky, while another bobbed and cocked its head at a location not far from Hugly’s path. Hugly slowed. The crow had doubtlessly seen him, but it was not looking at him under the bright, half-clouded sky, this mildly cold day. The bird did it again. A bob of the head and slight cocking, as it was seeing something off in the distance and beneath its perched gaze. Hugly slowed to a near walk and softly padded off into the longer grass toward the crow’s interest.
The short-eared rabbit had not seen or heard Hugly approach, but suddenly it smelled him. Curiously, it turned its head to discover Hugly’s lean body standing directly at its rear quarter, with his tied bag, his gummed feet, and his head out on his leaning torso. His wide eyes looked through his brows above the display of a broad, misshapen toothy smile.
The rabbit leaped sidelong from Hugly in panic, landing in a stagger to turn and run. Hugly was never more than one step from it, as it was now careening through the grass in full flight, turning this way and that way, every time it caught a glimpse of Hugly close enough to touch, as he matched its speed and turbulent attempt to flee him in fear.
To compete for speed was the ultimate thrill, and Hugly was getting it in spades from this fully-grown, male strip-tail. Hugly felt as though time slowed when he ran. He knew the move of each rabbit foot before it happened. He anticipated the sound of the beast’s breath and scrape of its nails. He saw each intent as it made its path in flight of him, as the two clove the tiny meadow with a jagged line.
Moving as one, they began to come near a small wood, when the rabbit took a misstep on a small fallen branch that lay hidden in the grass. It tumbled with its eyes wide in terror and its legs still in the run. Hugly had to pat a thrusting hairy foot to keep from being thumped by it. The rabbit twisted onto its feet, stopped, and froze in launch position. Hugly timed his stop to be in locked gaze with the terrified creature. However, just a moment into this, the same crow sailed directly overhead and off into the trees. Hugly looked to see it and breathed a heavy breath, ignoring the rabbit that had just taken the opportunity to tear away again.
Hugly wondered and looked back in the direction the crow had been cocking its head toward before. He carefully made his way back near the scrubs that covered the low hills on the meadow’s edge.
He ducked down when he caught a whiff of smoke, and brewing wickhetzel. It made him recall some distant sickness when the off-smelling tox was used to draw out a fever. He slowed and began to quietly pad, low and cautious.
Through the dry gray and tan grasses, Gallium fighters were suddenly within his view in their rock and limb strewn camp, just under the lee of a scrub oak, as they were stoking a small licking fire with a cauldron set above it.
Not wanting to be discovered, Hugly veered away without taking note of how many fighters there were. Bad happenings were most likely in store for whomever the red and green dressed troops were intending to visit in this region. Best to make note of them and immediately find his way away.
Just as he turned, Hugly heard footsteps to the rear on the rabbit path he had been following. He quickly and very quietly toe-heel stepped into the grass wall and lifted some dry matter to distort his shape.
A young and thin Gallium fighter, with jet black hair, passed by Hugly, mumbling a complaint to himself. He walked a further twenty steps into the camp, with the messy remnants of his drop all over the back of his leaf green trousers.
Hugly’s heart was pounding in his chest. The camp burst into laughter upon this young man’s entrance, and Hugly took the opportunity to make a hasty retreat through the grainheads.
After a good while, Hugly was sure he was far from the group, and looking to the trees and the sky, he pointed himself toward home and began a good run. Soon the distinction between the beats of his feet and hands diminished, until his coursing body became a thrumming.
Breaking free of the thick and dry autumn straw, the sky was suddenly above him, and there were no birds to be seen. Hugly opened up his stride, and the earth became his, as he breathed deeper and ran even faster and smoother on the soft dusty way.
Now, Hugly was not done for the day. Whenever in these parts, he would try to spend time in the battle grounds, where remnants from the War of the Lincolets could be stirred up out of the earth. He veered toward the watch heaps, somehow confident that he would not be meeting anyone wearing red and green along the way.
Protruding his face from the brush, Hugly peered out over a shallow valley speckled of low and broad hearty plants with tiny purple flowers that grew in places where men had fallen in battle.
Blood does that,
he’d been told. Hugly remembered such things he’d been taught, but largely upon seeing or hearing reminders—less so at other times.
Pulling a long, dead limb from the grass, he entered the field and returned to a place he had last been rummaging in the dirt at the base of a large dilapidated watch heap of stones, or as it was sometimes called, a Watcher’s Mound
. It probably was quite high at one time.
There were other heaps of stones elsewhere that Hugly knew were not as old, which were easily more than twenty men tall. And yet some were torn apart, stone by stone, to find if there had been a treasure buried beneath. Hugly, however, was not concerned with the impossible to confirm. It was the honors that others had given around the stones that he was certain of. He had found coins, altars, armor, weapons, and even men, who in life were attached in some way to whomever the stones were for—having been interned nearby to someone whom they were loyal and probably greatly loved.
In the stamped down hole, a stone in the dirt, which Hugly had left as stuck, was just as he’d left it. He pulled loose and dropped his bag and proceeded to move another loose stone near to the embedded one to execute the plan he had devised in his earlier thinking. Stabbing the limb between them, he leaned this back on the loose stone and pulled with his weight, and the object was turned up from its place.
Hugly knelt down, wrapped his arms about the Hugly-sized stone, and rolled it further before getting to his knees and plunging his hands into the fresh bed, to draw and pitch the dirt as he widened and deepened the spot. Soon he pulled out a sandal that he wiped free of the bulk of clinging soil. It was easy to see that it was well worn, very old… and quite useless.
He pushed around in a pile he had extricated, but found nothing. Back in the stone’s hole he dug and drew, finding more small stones until he pulled out a metal button, and then another, and then a third. These he set aside, having only wiped them down to their heavy tarnish.
He dug again and now found a cloth belt and then a small iron-wrapped, wooden shield that fell apart in his hand. Below it was an oddly shaped piece of metal. Extricating this, he found it was a somewhat crescent with a straight-ish edge on one end, and a beaten image was bumpy beneath the heavy years of earthen stain. He liked such odd finds.
Hugly looked up. The sun was near to gone, and he would need to be upon a real road soon to be able to reach Isha Maera by mid morrow. Putting his findings among his twenty dibeetles, he strapped his bag.
"Mosimpofah!" he said to the sky, beginning his rapid pace in the waning light.
Before he had taken a dozen steps, Hugly felt a distant thumping in the ground. He statue-stopped fully, his arms out like an odd tree. With his eyes jockeying about, he listened and felt. A half minute later, there were several more rapid thumps in the distance before him.
Now, while many would perceive danger and avoid such noises in the wilderness… Hugly, instead, trotted forward toward the treeline and turned directly into it.
CHAPTER 2
Now, having moved much closer, there was another set of thumps, in which he heard a distinct scuffle of some kind.
He followed further in the sparse trees, much slower toward what now distinctly contained a voice as well. It was excited. There, as the light waned through the sparseness of the trees was a freshly kicked burrower’s crater, and both the turbulence and a man’s voice were involved within it. Hugly stepped up the bank, and while peering in, a number of things were seen by him within a mere few seconds…
There, two thirds up on the interior of the opposite bank of a dirt bowl, laying on his side, restricted by heavy shoulder and belly packs, was a bald-top man with a short graying beard, who was laughing in chirps, while frantically clamoring to reach the top of the berm.
Standing motionless down in the small bottom of this bowl was a young armored burrowing dragon with a small pointed head. Its wide and flat body was supported by stubby spike-tipped legs that were closer front-to-back, than they were side-to-side. Its rear body cantilevered off and ended in a bony-bladed tail, clearly for use in digging and as a fifth leg.
The dragon was near the bottom and facing away, as the man frantically tried to pull himself out of the crater with his hands, but with little movement to his legs. Suddenly, the gray-scaled dragon, with a wave of its tail, jerked its spread-toed feet forward. Staggering like a metronome, it rapidly ran up the bank in a corkscrew, throwing leaves and other forest-floor debris up into the air on its route.
It passed not far below Hugly in the turn, with its oddly grinning lips and slotted black eyes that did not see him. Though it very well may have felt his feet on the earth as he approached. It rounded the sloping wall and jerked itself, crashing into the man. And upon passing him and sliding to a stop, it lifted its legs and belly-slid down the slope to the bottom, where it jacked itself back onto its feet and stood facing away again. Its thick, wet, pink tongue bulged out and tackily wiped its mouth. Then pinching, it was pulled back in, leaving a dollop of soil and sticky goo to drop on the ground.
The young barbless dragon, which was only slightly larger than the man, had used its tail in the attack, hitting its desperate prey in the legs and spinning him about on the slope. The attempt was to cause the man to lose his scamper and fall to the bottom of the crater, where the dragon had a freshly dug hole in the black soil. The man found a short stick from where he now rested, and stabbing into the dirt, he turned himself upward toward the berm top and continued his hindered escape attempt. He was laughing, and had been laughing the whole time.
Seeing all of this, Hugly ran about the half circumference of the crater and doffed his bag and pack, and then over the opposite berm, he tack-kneed himself quickly down to the man, reaching him just at the moment the dragon began stamping itself into an ascending spiral again.
The man’s face was fully smiling as he looked into Hugly’s, which was all of concern. Knowing what was coming, Hugly stepped himself to the man’s lower on the impact side. He planted an elbow and knee in the dirt, and took the man’s hand.
The twilight quickly faded in this moment, and Hugly could not see the dragon’s outline—only the faint flashes in his skewed peering, as it wound its way up. Hugly quickly calculated the impact, braced himself, and kicked early in the monster’s arrival. His gummed sole landed squarely on the dragon’s rocklike, right front leg, which was so stiff to its body that it was like kicking a tree stump.
The kick did not affect its locomotion at all though. However, combined with gravity on the slope, it did alter the dragon’s direction, so that he had moved it wholly downhill a scant. Its tail lash barely glanced off of Hugly’s out-thrust leg, before the dragon mechanically stopped in the turn, cocked up its legs, and belly-slid to the bottom again. The man was still laughing.
Hugly went uphill and grabbed the man by his shoulder straps. With his legs and the man’s hands, they overcame the sloping dirt that gave-way beneath them. They made the peak of the berm before the dragon could begin its next assault.
Rolling off, small things of the man’s effects spilled from his belly pack. Still laughing somewhat, the man began thanking Hugly who was now picking things up and putting them quickly into the man’s hands.
With its prey gone from the arena, the dragon now had nothing to attack, and it likely returned to its lair to await another who would not be so fortunate.
I thought I might have been done today. Thank you for rescuing me,
the man said gratefully.
You can’t walk?
Hugly asked.
By faith, it… my legs,
the man replied, with his breath heavy.
Hugly couldn’t see, but knew he was smiling. He began examining the man’s legs through his trousers.
No,
the man said, it hit me. I can’t feel my legs.
Hugly paused a moment and then stood up and quickly trotted off as the twinkling sky began to reveal itself. He returned a few minutes later with a pair of long and straight sticks that he began to tie in tandem to the wooden frame of the man’s belly pack.
The man was looking at the shape of Hugly’s face in the starlight. The proud bones shined.
I’m Truck,
he offered.
Hugly stopped and rubbed his fingers over his hands a moment before continuing his work. Once fastened, Hugly put Truck’s hands on the top of the sticks, and carefully he lifted him until he was standing. His legs were beneath him, but his weight came from his chest and hands, then down the sticks to the ground. Hugly donned his own belly bag and put his backpack atop. He was looking Truck over in the dim.
Truck told him, I can’t walk like this.
A crow gargled in the distance.
I know,
said Hugly, as he faced away from Truck, reached the sides of his own rib cage, and wrapped his thumbs on the sticks, pinning Truck to his back. Leaning forward, much of Truck’s weight was now upon him, but for a slight of it, through the sticks resting on the ground.
Soon they were on the move, as Hugly’s shortened steps were sure and steady. Once out of the trees, they moved smoothly, albeit slowly, but they were moving right along.
Hugly,
he felt right to say, and Truck began to laugh delightedly over Hugly’s shoulder.
Over the rough paths, Hugly carried the man. Tree roots and rocks were frequently a nuisance that slowed them. Hugly never stopped, however. He simply rerouted to go off the paths or to press through and over.
After a half-hour or so, they came to a tall scrub cluster that cut off the sky before them, where even the best eyes would not be able to find their way in the black. Hugly looked about for any onlookers. He leaned the man fully onto his back and padded slowly into the mess of branches, where shortly this travel grew even more difficult. He had to weave their way, until he was laying Truck down on his sticks and dragging him through the toughest untrod thickness.
Finally reaching a cubby of branch-walls, Hugly laid the man on his belly pack and got down on all fours in the dark, feeling the extent and sniffing as he went to learn clearly what it might mean to stay there.
We’re stopped,
Hugly said.
Good,
said Truck. I’ve had to pee for the longest.
After some adjustment, Hugly disappeared the way they’d come, returning after a long while with his arms widely filled with something that he began somehow pasting to the interior walls. Hugly departed a second time and returned after another longer while with his arms full again. Truck wondered how he was able to return to the same location in the lack of light. He could see only the faintest indications of his surrounding as Hugly was busy before him clearing the cubby floor.
Hugly powdered the dry fall leaves he’d brought and added root sap until he had shaped them into a large conical cake with its broad end up. Then came the sound of a smooth rubbing, where a tiny glow was made that Hugly nurtured and placed in an opening at the base of the cone. The sweet smell of burning resin came to Truck’s nose. As the small base began to glow, there came a low light and comforting warmth. It was not evenly taking, so Hugly stoked and fed the glow until it burned fully around in a ring from within.
Truck could now see the green leaves that roughly formed a dome, and he marveled at all Hugly had accomplished in the dark. The slow-burning cone radiated and gave off no smoke as its vapor rose up and escaped out a hole in the ceiling.
Truck sat leaning on one arm, and he used the other to unfurl some bedding from his packs, upon which he pulled and wrapped himself until he was somewhat comfortable in an upright sitting position.
Hugly chose a couple of twigs from the cubby’s edge and placed one into Truck’s hand. He then pulled a dibeetle from his bag and put it at the end of a twig, where it grabbed hold with all six legs. Hugly then pulled another and did the same with his own twig. This he outstretched near the cone, and quickly pinned the dibeetle’s shellback to the glowing base, whereupon the bug began wildly kicking and grabbing at the twig.
A broad smile covered Truck’s face, and he almost wanted to do the same. Thank you, Hugly. But I cannot eat this. I’m a Bone. It’s forbidden.
Hugly didn’t appear to notice what Truck said, but after a moment, he took the twig from Truck and put the dibeetle back in his bag.
Not too much,
he instructed, referring to his food. It’ll pop.
Hugly was looking in a direction, as though he were speaking to someone near Truck’s feet. The hearth glow made Hugly look wide-eyed.
It was apparent to Truck that Hugly was uncomfortable looking directly at someone. If Hugly could be seen, he would not reciprocate. Truck wondered at his young caretaker. He pulled some food from his own pack, and before they ate in silence, Hugly leaned himself in such a way that he was behind the cone, where he prayed in whispers. In the faint glow that lighted their shelter, this is where Hugly stayed.
Truck was slightly startled when the ring had ashened and the whole cone suddenly crunched down in perfect balance, where the glow remained even and slowly ate away.
Fascinating…
Truck said at this. He decided to breach the silence further and attempt to satisfy some of his curiosity. Gently he spoke. Can I ask how old you are, Hugly?
Ahhn...
Hugly voiced his uncertainty. He had anticipated a conversation was brewing and could tell Truck was often looking directly at him. Feeling a need to preemptively give it a conclusive tone, he rolled over in his cloak to face away. He was particularly uncomfortable conversing with people concerning… just about any subject.
Truck was able to discern all of this. As he would soon go to sleep in the security and comfort provided by his quiet rescuer, Truck rubbed his hands together, arrayed them in the air before him, bowed his head, and began quietly mumbling an earnest prayer of thanks.
CHAPTER 3
Truck woke to daylight that poured through the gaps in the leaf lined collet. He had curled into a ball at night. And now found that his legs had slightly recovered some motion, coupled with a sharp low back pain in his movement. The cone between Hugly and him was now a perfect low ring of cold gray ash. Tiny beads of moisture were on everything around, and Hugly was absent, although his pack was staged in his place.
Truck was thirsty. He leaned through an opening in the wall and drew his fingers on the branches nearby. Putting his lips to the smooth bark, he drank from the clean, fresh morning dew. He wasn’t satisfied, but he wasn’t desperate either. He then immediately became bored, so he ate a small piece of raisin cake from a wax paper wrap and drew at more dew to wash it down.
While it was still early morn, Hugly quietly returned with things strapped to his back. In his hand was a piece of fibrous bark that had been stretched open to form a cup. This was filled with water, which Truck was grateful to drink further from.
Hugly immediately prepared to extricate Truck from the moist wicker camp, but Truck encouraged Hugly to slow down.
Let’s eat something before we go. I have some nice biscuits and raisin cake that you’ll like. Give you lots of energy.
Hugly’s look-away became more intentional. Have to go now,
he said at a near whisper.
Alright,
Truck responded obediently.
Taking Truck nearly back to the path, Hugly went ahead by himself in a very quiet and cautious manner, which caused Truck to become quiet and cautious too.
After a bit, Hugly returned with a wheel that was waist high, twisted and tied together, and made from an apparently very flexible green reed that he must have just cut. Hugly took the straight sticks from Truck’s belly pack, strap-mounted a cross member between them, and attached them also to an odd-wood axle on the wheel. Laying Truck with his back upon this and then placing his feet on the axle of the wheel that his legs now straddled, Truck’s crotch was a mere finger’s width from the green round.
Hugly lifted the sticks from behind, and Truck was now laying with his back propped by his pack, sitting nearly upright. With the two of them facing the same direction, Hugly pushed him out into the scrub path tunnel. And turning this newly mobile system west, Hugly began to run.
This path contained some rough spots, but Hugly seemed to just continue to pick up speed as he negotiated them. Truck was feeling each bump through the cross-member beneath him, and he was exerting what little his legs could on the axle. This was also keeping his scrotum from the rapidly spinning wheel where two protruding leaf ends were gently finding their mark. At one point, it could be clearly seen ahead, that the over brush was very low. But Hugly was not going to slow down. In fact, he deliberately ran at it even faster.
In uncertainty, Truck had just enough time to glance over his shoulder before Hugly dropped the sticks to the ground, stepped upon them, and rode them, skidding low with his hands and feet, for the full measure of the overhead obstacle, before lifting them again and continuing the run as the path opened up. They hadn’t even stopped. Truck began to laugh up into the sky, and Hugly smiled.
Out of the scrub and on to rolling hills of sparse grasses, their rabbit trail nearly intersected a maintained road of stamped clay, where the duo turned northeast, while the sun was rising into the sky. Now in the open and with a light breeze to their backs, Hugly began stretching out his stride. His arms stiff as branches supporting his rescue, and the flexible, soft wheel in perfect balance, Hugly found the challenge and scissored his legs in what fully astounded Truck. Lightly breathing with his mouth open and tongue raised, Hugly moved himself, his new friend, their three full packs, and a hastily-constructed hand cart down this road so fast that Truck found himself terrified at times.
Soon, they were passing people in both directions. First was a pair of ladies with dried farm greens faggoted to their backs.
Oh, dear!
exclaimed one in the after moment.
Then, from the other direction, after shearing by, a class train of young children all broke out into excited conversation, as the leading teacher instructed loudly for the children and the Hugly Express to hear: And that’s why we stay single file.
Next, they began passing increasing travelers and other maintained roads that intersected. Farmhouses were nestled in the corners, and labor shacks were perched in harvested fields of neatly furrowed farms made level by the combined efforts of generations of farming families and their neighbors. Hugly turned a right fork in the road, which shortly went downhill, where a vast depressed area was canopied in thin, leafless shrub branches.
The town of Mownacre had round and oval thatched homes and many more low and broad buildings—most of which had smoking stacks that spread out a flat, thick layer of gray above in the trees. Hugly began turning corners as the buildings grew more numerous and closer together.
After more than a dozen angles, Hugly stopped before a home, where a sun-faded green and white banner hung upon the wall. It had the image of a cracked grain, with an X atop and a reaching hand below. Hugly lightly and quickly rapped his knuckle on the door and then wheeled Truck around to the sunny side of the house. There, an earth borne, bubbling tube spilled water into an open clay aqueduct set into the soil, where the water slowly trundled away somewhere.
Helping Truck onto a wooden bench to tend to himself, Hugly reached into his pack and began pulling listless dibeetles out and putting them into an array on the ground. About half of them were missing at least one leg, which was probably due to their cramped quarters over the last day’s rough journey. Periodically adjusting ones that were sluggardly making an escape, Hugly put his toes and fingers before them. Matching a dibeetle to each, he put three aside and then declared, Twenty.
Truck looked to his pack in the moment, feeling a little embarrassed for him.
Voices were heard as the front door opened and closed. Soon, a woman and a large man rounded the corner. They were both wearing heavily-stained smocks.
Meeky!
said the woman affectionately, as she stepped forward and scratched her nails in a petting, over Hugly’s thin-haired scalp.
The man put his hands on his hips in mild disapproval of Hugly and glanced a bit at Truck, who sat watching. Hugly never looked up, but kept his head down, diligently attending the dibeetles in the neat little arch he had placed them.
Once the woman turned and looked directly acknowledging Truck, he introduced himself and apologized for not getting up. He rescued me from a dragon yesterday. Most amazing!
said Truck, as the thought put a smile upon his face.
Gallium fighters at Dead Tree,
declared Hugly, while being extra diligent to the insects before him.
The man’s brow went down discontentedly. What the devil? Is the war coming here?
, he queried to the air. The woman looked to him with the same concern. Are they conscripting, maybe?
He shrugged his lips about, before he turned the corner and reentered the house.
Looking at Truck, the woman pointed to herself and then in the direction of the door, I’m Della, and that’s Carter.
From a stack of them, Della picked a woven basket and filled it with the dibeetles. Carter returned and set on the bench a large, husk-wrapped wedge of powder-covered white cheese and two large wooden cups filled to the brim with milk, saying in a friendly tone to Truck, Refresh yourselves and get a wash up. We have work calling us.
Before following Carter inside, Della gave Hugly a thin silver coin about the size of his fingernail. She called him Meeky
again and listed a few other things she would like him to bring before the snow came.
After Della departed, Truck produced a knife and began sectioning from the cheese. They’re nice,
he said to Hugly, who was now drinking his fat-rich milk in deep gulps.
Hugly stopped to breathe. She wants spotted dumbugs. My red moon birth sign. I can’t never find ‘em.
They ate cheese and biscuits and washed up in the cold water before readying themselves for travel again. Hugly put the remaining three dibeetles in a basket. He set them on the stoop, rapped on the door, and started off down the road, pushing Truck on the wheel.
The sun peaked as they came west out of the depression and the day began to warm. Hugly only stopped to replace the worn wheel from a fresh green marshy supply that was close to the road.
Running this farmland, into the afternoon, they finally crested the root hill of an enormous misshapen alder tree that they had been seeing for some time in the distance. Nearby, tall grasses carpeted a small glen surrounded by a variety of smaller leafless trees. Following around the base of the hill suddenly revealed a low, brick-built square, topped with a split-wood counter on the roadside. Next to it, there was a short path upward that led to a home that could not be seen unless one were directly in front of it.
The tiny hillock home was set within the cleave of two large stones that had forced the tree to grow an opening above it. The front wall appeared as an odd face with a tall, thin, round-top door at the center, as if it were the home’s mouth, proclaiming. Three high openings, spiraling deeply inward, were conically narrowed down to divided glass polygonal windows, providing a pair of faceted eyes and a nose. A broad, single sloping roof with a large hinged flap and several stone chimneys were built into this, giving something of a cave above, where in some late summers, various creatures would attempt to make a home. This, of course, could be very dangerous. So the owner, Foster Cousins, having dealt with this a number of times, simply ran a smoldering pitch in the emberhearths whenever this happened. The smoke would rapidly drive out anything, and those that were driven out, would never return.
Saplings had come in the last few years and so too had come their bits of shading in the summer days that helped to cool the home, along with a large furry hemlock, whose broadening had grown to cut the sun off early in the summer afternoons. All in all, it was a cozy, insulated place that stayed extraordinarily warm in winter and required little upkeep.
Hugly back-pulled Truck up the path to the flat area before the home. He staged him in the shade near two out-buildings, where he removed Truck’s packs and set them by the house door, which he then rapped his knuckles on before pulling much of his pack apart on the stoop.
A moment later, the door swung inward, and out came a plump, middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile and rosy red cheeks. A pair of tiny spectacles were wire-suspended from one of several firm, rounded knurls of graying hair above her forehead. She wore soft ferret leather shoes and a frilled, long dress of light blue with sleeves. Around her neck were several gold chains—all of which dangled something useful, such as a magnified monocle, keys, a soft clump of bitumen for starting embers, a small grip-shaped smoking pipe, and even a small shaker of salt.
Hugly looked directly at her.
Huuuuuggs…
she said affectionately, as she reached out and took hold of him at his side. Hugly looked away uncontrollably, and the woman turned his head back and scolded, Come now,
before stepping back and asking expectantly, What did you bring me?
Hugly reached for his pack and began extricating even more from it. A half minute later, Truck drew in a loud, deep breath. For from the moment Isha Maera had stepped out, he had been laughing so hard that no sound was escaping from him. Now that he had breathed, he was silently laughing even harder, with his face turning bright red, as little successive shots of pressured air escaped his throat in rapid rhythm.
Surprised, Isha Maera jerked her head his way and focused on him as realization came to her.
Truck Bonesift, what are you doing here?
Truck’s eyes drew wide, and his brows shot up, as he took another breath and loudly began to bellow a hearty laugh. Hugly began to laugh with him.
While she strode toward him across the dirt landing, holding her dress pinned to her thigh, Truck managed to say to her, Isha Maera Bonesift, you have become our mother.
What on earth are you doing here?
she asked in a choppy tempo as she reached him and hugged him in his seat. How long have you been here?
she now asked as she made a leading gesture for him to follow her. Why are you just sitting there? Come inside.
He put his hand beneath and shifted himself. I’m in need,
he explained, extending a hand toward Hugly, who quickly came over, turned around, cinched Truck up his back and moved towards the door.
Isha Maera stood mouth agape at this before collecting herself and rushing ahead of them. As they neared the door, Truck looked out across the road to the broad field that gently sloped away until it met an area of tall brown grass that followed a short stone wall. In the field were a pair of magpies casually picking around for insects. "They're awfully close. Truck noted. Isha Maera looked out at them with an eyebrow up. She pursed her lips.
Oh, they're back. She said.
They've been rummaging that field for years now. I think they have a nest nearby."
CHAPTER 4
Once through the doorway, there was a tall tunnel, going only slightly upward and spanning a full four yards through the mix-stone front wall. With just enough room for one to walk comfortably, it was rather narrow compared to the needlessly high-arched ceiling. In the sidewalls were dozens of nooks filled with empty polished luminaries. Numerous others contained over-flowing phylacteries and scrolled treatises, prayers, and verses. At the end, a thick alder door swung on a large steel rod of a hinge, in such a way that it would seal up the tunnel like a bottle cork.
Through this door was one very broad and high-ceilinged room with several layers of heavy alder rafters. These layers served as floors without walls, whereby wide, hand-hewn staircases allowed a person to ascend from several directions. These staircases were numerous and varied in size, elevation, and location, with a number of switch-back designs consisting often of landings that were essentially smaller habitable locations. There were rails in places but not many.
As usual, Hugly looked up at this array with childlike awe and a desire to run about the whole of it. All the wood in this home had been treated to a garnum soak, which made them not immune, but quite resistant to catching fire.
Approaching a heavy post, Isha Maera actuated a mounted brass rod that articulated several other jointed rods that eventually reached a ceiling trap door, which closed down slightly, where its polished, metal face reflected the sun and brightly lit the entry area. Once she had settled Truck onto some marmot fur cushions, Isha Maera began giving instructions to Hugly, as he sat on a wood bench peeling the gum from his feet.
Soon, he was running off and returned with a full-sized, stone wash basin that he loudly dragged along the wood floor until reaching Truck. The entire time he looked down or off away, quickly taking in the orders in the simplistic way he was given them. Isha Maera squinted at him when he wasn’t looking. He departed and returned again and again, filling this tub with buckets of very hot water that Truck could not enter until Hugly had brought buckets of cold water to tame it.
Once within, Truck recounted to his sister, the story of his rescue at Hugly’s hands, followed by Isha Maera very busily pouring oils in the water and administering several remedies for Truck’s injury. At the last that he sniffed, his face went ashen white very quickly for a few moments and then color returned as he slumped comfortably with droopy eyes into the steam-covered water.
Hugly was off on an errand, and while in a very fine mood, Isha Maera took a seat on a stool and began rubbing an ointment into Truck’s eyebrows.
Given a return of some motion, I suspect you will recover,
she said, smiling and clearly thinking of several things at once. It was good to see you laughing. Do you still laugh when you're nervous?
She asked.
Yes. Especially when things are perilous. But when it happens, there's no time to address it.
"Hugly is my Schmonkle, by the way," said Truck with his broad smile near the wispy water surface.
Oh, no you don’t…
Isha Maera stopped her cheerful humming. You don’t get to just arrive here and take a Bone’s Schmonkle,
she said, pausing her outstretched arm and leaning her head to look in his face.
He’s clearly mine,
Truck replied with satisfaction. He brought me here, and I never told him where I was going. He saved me and literally carried me to my destination from afar, without even a discussion on the subject. I haven’t even been able to give a proper thanks. It’s truly overwhelming…
He was slurring his words a bit.
Isha Maera forcefully pushed her finger against Truck’s forehead and began to speak firmly, He brought you here because this is where I sent him from. He just returned as he was supposed to. You just happened to be with him by coincidence. Hugly has been my Schmonkle for nearly three years. What little you know. My Schmonkle brought my brother to my house. He serves me!
she scolded in a shift from her earlier delighted tone.
Truck looked directly at her through his drooping eyes with his face now more serious. It’s a very rare thing for a woman to have a Schmonkle. What great work are you at, needing one?
Her eyes drew wide at the insult, and her voice went sharply up an octave and in volume, What great work are you at, Truck Bonesift?! Some highly efficient method for getting bubbly beer to your face?!
She stepped up from her stool, and spun away with her hands to her mouth in embarrassment. I’m sorry. Forgive me,
she said softly.
After a moment of reflection, she turned and spoke again in a measured tone. You don’t know what you are saying. God left Hugly with me during Foster’s absence. And just because my beloved returns soon, does not change anything. I’ve been very busy praying for him, as well as having been deep in medical studies you couldn’t even fathom. Hugly is God’s gift to me. I need him.
She pressed emphasis.
Truck steadied his tone. What do you know about Hugly?
What do you mean?
Isha Maera suddenly knew she was on unsteady ground.
Well, what does his name mean?
Truck asked as he watched himself pat the still water with his hand.
Isha Maera began to pace looking for a way to answer.
How old is he?
continued Truck.
Quickly she answered, He doesn’t know his birthday, but he is about twenty-seven to thirty.
She knew she was on the spot.
He’s twenty-three,
declared Truck. Born in June or July in 414.
Needing a victory now, Isha Maera began fishing for one. I’ve been good to him. I’ve taught him lots of things. Given him a place to stay. Protected him. Prayed for him…
Truck took a deep breath, lifting himself a bit and revealing a line where his pale skin met the bright red that had been submersed. Did you teach him his numbers?
We’re working on that,
Isha Maera said, looking upward, knowing she was being pinned.
You taught him
twenty, didn’t you?
Truck asked looking off at the wall.
Everyone needs to start somewhere,
Isha Maera defended. He has no education. All Schmonkle’s need education. It’s tradition. He and I have been working on that.
In that moment, Hugly entered the room. With his arms straight down, he took several long steps toward the two, stopped flat footed, and looked directly at Truck. You’re her sister,
he said to him.
Truck’s smile returned. Yes, she’s my sister.
Hugly smiled too, flitted his eyes, spun around, and hurried out, literally on his hands and feet. Isha Maera snickered uncontrollably, and Truck laughed a little.
The two siblings settled themselves and did not contend so emotionally for the remainder of the evening. They moved on to enjoy a meal with Hugly, who came early, ate, and left quickly. He scarfed his plate clean in less than two minutes, and then he departed early to go off and sleep in his preferred loneness in one of the out-buildings.
He doesn’t like to eat with people,
said Isha Maera when he’d gone. She served yellow and white cheeses, and a soft flavorful field-mouse butter that was spread on a very fine leavened toast. Cured meat was caramelized before them on a glowing piece of pressed turf. A flame would naturally cook such foods to perfection much quicker, but a licking flame had been forbidden by decree for nearly one hundred and forty years. It seemed to be one of those decrees that everyone complied with out of a personal and social agreement. Penalties were, however, rather severe.
Isha Maera had put Truck belly-down on a large soft cushion. He lay propped up on his elbows with a wrapped warm stone that she set on his lower back. With Hugly off to pursue his sleep, the two sat drinking a light and very dry creepberry wine, discussing Truck’s visit.
Isha Maera broke the issue: You put off marriage to pursue your studies, and suddenly you’re here. What sent you to me?
Truck cocked his head and squinted, before addressing the true issue between them. You may think you've put your family on hold, but we all love you. Father may have been harsh, but you changed. He’s been quite hurt over it. He hurts daily, I assure you. But I figured, that you married a Nok... non-Bone, and even a face-down believer...
Truck had nearly used a slur and then went on to unintentionally use another in the same sentence. …but he would never disown you. Mother cries for you. I’ve seen her. And I decided that I’ve waited long enough. I stepped up from all my scripture studies, and I’ve come to meet a man so important as to capture my sister away.
He was attempting to put the issue in terms that were amenable. He intended to continue, yet Isha Maera was compelled to interject.
You think of him, as the Raemys speak,. ‘face-down-believer’ and all that, and how the rescuers are some kind of cult. But I tell you, Foster is as dedicated to God as any Bone… and more than most.
She slowed her speech for emphasis and thought. "And you think he’s less than a Bone, or so far from us that I might be considered to have married an animal. But he probably knows more about God than you, to the verse and the punctuation. He’s strong in God.
"To this day, I’ll bet you and your old classmates are still deliberating about traditions and duties to establish, or duties to overthrow, or duties to create policies that influence everyone… Meanwhile, God moves Foster to do in the name of God—things you would not even consider. You and the Clown Army..."
Truck began to chuckle.
She continued anyway, ...haven’t the courage to do half of what Foster’s done. And from them, he soon returns. You’ll see. He is a good man, a great man—a man after God’s heart.
‘The Clown Army?’ I’d completely forgotten you used to call us that,
Truck said, amused. Speaking of which, Enoch dreams you’ve never married, and he thinks you’ll one day come back and be his bride.
Then he’s still as much the fool I thought he was,
Isha Maera said firmly.
Truck reflected and then took a long drink. "I did oppose your marriage to someone who’s not a Bone, and to a rescuer no less, but I also know you would have been miserable with someone like Enoch. Don’t forget, I opposed your arranged marriage to that fat, hairy marmot too. And I stood up for you when Mother was afraid to speak. I couldn’t stomach that whole unhappy mess, and I risked my own relationship with Father over it… for you… because I love you.
Truck continued, I can tell from your letters that your marriage isn’t just a symptom of rebellion. I know you love him, but you’ve been estranged from everyone for a quarter of a century. Everyone’s hurt. Everyone’s changed. It’s not right. So I’m here, and I’m very happy to see you.
He paused a moment to take a breath, as his throat had clenched in the anxious thoughts. And I’m not wholly opposed to the rescuer doctrines. It’s controversial in the Temple. The Raemys all criticize it, but principally, we all look forward to being rescued. I've actually studied it intently, and I dare say I know more than any of the Raemys. It’s just the whole idea of ignoring the scriptures and only focusing on the divine leader that’s—
Isha Maera cut him off. It’s not ignoring the scriptures. Instead of just the past, it’s about God in the past, present, and future. The temple is so smart. They look at the past and purposely blind themselves to the prophecies. The Raemys are just afraid of losing the traditions they have made to keep themselves on those lofty seats and in those brightly colored robes.
She said the last part with a particular bit of bitterness.
The issue hung, as silence settled in. After a
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